Hola! Another week means another update! Last week we brought in Route 29 to story mode, which meant some really exciting things! Seeing wild pokemon in the map, your first party pokemon following you, capturing new pokemon, and hunting for shinies. But with that brought a new set of features that need to be added and a new set of problems and bugs to fix! That is the nature of games. So let's talk about what is coming this week.

Critical Bugs:
We have a number of what I like to call critical bugs. Bugs that really ruin the experience of the players and should have priority in being fixed. For this update we have 3 of such bugs.

Saving not working (sometimes) - This one is pretty hard to fix because it sometimes works and it sometimes doesn't. You guys have given me some info that will help track it down. A reliable method to making this bug happen would be appreciated if you guys can come up with one. I have to be able to recreate the bug to solve it.

Not learning moves - Apparently if more than one pokemon has to learn a move or evolve there are some cases when they don't. This is linked to using faster speeds in battle when this happens.

Hole in the Route 29 map - There seems to be a gap somewhere in the map that lets the user get inside the forest where they shouldn't be going to. I mean to find this hole and do something fun with it.

Features:
After the critical bugs are dealt with (or after I'm tired of trying to fix them) I'll move into new features that I think are necessary before the game can progress much farther. The way I decide which feature should come next depends on what you can do in the game and how much use it is going to get by you guys. It's all about effort vs reward when choosing what to work on next.

Trading Center for PTD2 - To me this is a staple of the game and what really supports me to keep developing the game. It will start as a copy of the PTD1 version but I will be improving it over time. You guys have given me a lot of great suggestion to what and how the Trading Center could be improved.

1v1 Mode Changes - I'm honestly not sure if this will be a quick change or if it's going to take the whole week. I'll have to make the changes and then rebalance the mode so that it won't be too easy/hard. If you don't know what the changes will be check out last week's blog.

Mystery Gift - Zorua is ready to go but I have to work things out with the sponsor and make the screen for this to get it out.

Day and Night - This is an interesting one, adding the Day and Night cycle to story mode. This will mean new pokemon to catch and new npc dialog for different times. I also have to answer some questions like: Will time only move forward in Routes? (Like you can be in a town and time will stand still, when you go in the route it will gradually change to night and back to day again. Then go back into town and it will be what ever time you ended up in but it won't change until you go to the route again.) And the technical aspects of how I will do it. Will I use a tint effect or a movieclip overlay? (Technical speak)

Held Items - This one is pretty fun too. Probably start with berries. I have this idea that berries can have multiple charges. So they last more than one use with a cooldown between uses. Also leads up to super berries that have unlimited charges.

Releasing Pokemon - Now that you can capture pokemon you need a way to get rid of them.

I also have some left over items from the last few weeks. So that's what I have this week I hope to cover a lot of it. Keep checking back to see how I'm doing, ask questions, give suggestions, or encourage me. It's up to you!

PTD 2 Pokemon CenterOUT NOW!- Note: Other pages, such as Daily Gift, Inventory, Game Corner will be added/changed later on as the game develops.

Create Trade Page - You will be able to make up to 3
separate request for your trade. Meaning you can request a Shiny Zorua
OR Shiny Rattata OR Shadow Sentret. Also you can specify gender. Each
request can have up to 10 pokemon up from 6.

Your Trade Request Page

Search Trade - Can now search by Gender and you can view all 3 possible request the other trainer has put up.

Searching for any gender instead of just Male or Female for both regular search and want search

1v1 Mode Changes - Note: The last level might be a little too hard right now, I'll fix it up next week.

Defeated target will no longer give out experience

Evolutions will not be available for unlocking

Every pokemon will now start at level 5

You will level up with candies that are given out after beating levels

When you use a checkpoint you will get the same amount of candies that
you would have received if you have beaten all the way up to that point.
So you can skip the previous levels and still have a powerful team

Lowered the cost of some pokemon.

Made the level with the old Hiker easier.

Added the Pokemon Center to the Mode Select Screen

Fixed a bug that is preventing new users from saving their game

Fixed a percentage problem on Sentret's waves

Made it so you can play PTD 1 and PTD 2 at the same time

Alpha v1.19.5: Bug Fixes, Small Changes and additions: Released!

Fixed a bug that some battles in story mode give you money when they shouldn't

Even after you have more than 6 pokemon, the game will put the first 6 on your party in story mode

Instead of disappearing completely, Sentret that are hiding will now just be faded

Wave Security

Prevent users from playing story mode and using the PTD 2 Pokemon
Center at the same time to prevent duplication exploits that come when trading is activated.

Saving Bug - FIXED OMG! It was a stupid server problem, so it should work now!

Gap in the Route 29 Map - Did something fun with it.

Added a Police Officer infront of Route 46's entrance

Randomize the level and distance of the wild pokemon waves to break the uniformity of them

Pokemon Center

Picking which profile to enter - The profile page will now show profile that you have made from PTD 2, including your avatar and version color.

Side Bar - Integrate PTD 2 info into the side bar.

Home Page for PTD 2 - Being able to retrieve or release any pokemon to your corresponding profile.

Adoption Page- This page includes Shiny Starters and Shiny Zorua to start.

Creature Universe TD
Last week's CU meeting that I had with the team was really short. We updated each other on what we were doing and called it a night. The game is progressing but I don't have a lot to share with you guys this week. Next week I hope to bring you guys some new creature designs and info.
That's all we have for you this week. Keep checking back to see how I'm doing, and as always, let me know what you think!

1. I caught Shiny Sentret and leveled it up to max.2. I saved my profile.3. I made another profile and started to play on it for a while to get another starter later.4. I saved all the progress and got back.5. When I logged in to my first save file, I didn't have my Shiny Sentret.:<

first of all, great job with the story level. i only have a question about catching pokemon in the future. will it be like in route 29 that every pokemon you can catch has his own behaviour, or will there also be random battles with different pokemons in the waves? i would like it the first way, cause you can better search for a specific pokemon ;)

sam i'm not played a hacked proflie (ptd1) but the pokemon i use the most and lvl up but when i check the pokemon center it says hacked pokemon on there names the pokemon, Persian, Charizard, shadow Snorlax, Raichu and some others can you hehelp?

with the save bug it seems that it saves the location but not the pokemon I cought lvled up all my pokemon to max, pressed back and then reentered and my starter was back to lvl 7 (from 10) and no caught pokemon.then the 3rd time trying I tryed to go to the town again, saved there. when I entered again I was in the town but no pokemon

Sam, I've got a question. I know that you are busy on making this fixing stuff but could you add shortcuts to changing speed someday? I know it can sounds a little lazy of me, but it would add to the game some more options to use keyboard instead of only mouse. ;)

like many of the other people here, Sam. I also think that it doesn't save correctly if you dont save regularly. It happened to me once, and that time, i hadn't saved for some time.And about the not learning move bug, one of my rattatas didn't learn focus energy at lv.7.Another time, 3 of my sentrets learned defense curl at the same time. S i dont think its just about more than 1 pokemon learning a move. I was playing on high speed both times.

Looks great! The berries look awesome, especially the super berries, but I think I'm most excited about night/day. I like the whole day only changes in the routes and not in the city thing, very much like Legend of Zelda which worked out very well. Though of course other games did it too, like Sword of Mana. I think it's my favorite night/day implementation.

This is a level cap to prevent people from overtraining and making the rest of the game not fun, since when the game is finished most people aren't going to get much past level 10 by the time they move on beyond route 29. You can find answers to questions like this here: http://samdangames.blogspot.com/p/fan-linksfaq.html.

I just had an idea that I'm not sure about myself but I decided to share. As it is it looks likes there won't be "levels" in PTD2 making it more like the world of the main pokémon games. Sam could make Pokémon Centers in the towns save points instead of being able to save all the time. This could also advance time a bit so if you wanted to it to be night you wouldn't have to wait or walk around a lot you could just save your game and time would advance to the night. Just a thought, I suppose you could keep the save all the time option and just have the option to advance time another way.

in HG/SS it was only 5% rattata during the dayhttp://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Route_29#Generation_IV

but I haven't noticed 40% sentret . . . I think it's because I don't go for pidgey, every time you battle a pokémon it gets replaced by a random one i think so if you leave all the pidgey alone and battle all the sentret and rattata you could end up with pidgey only in the route. I hope that's not how it works, maybe the pokémon offscreen can change when you go back to them, idk.

No, the +4 stays with you during the wave, so it holds for all subsequent moves. And in the original game, focus energy lasted until your pokemon switched out, like any other stat booster. If you tried to use focus energy twice in the game, it would say that your pokemon is already focused and do nothing.

I personally liked more the waves in Ptd1 where some pokemon were rare also in the regular sprite and had their value in trades like lapras and snorlax and sometimes also eevee. I propose to create in the future a safari zone for each generation and in which the waves are like in ptd1 with some rare pokemons like lapras and snorlax were. Please take in consideration this option I would like it so much!

i meant in normal pokémon games,i wasn't sure if focus energy was just for the next move or if it lasted. I think the confusion comes from the cards, i think my rattata card said focus energy was for the next move

Sam ptd 2 game play is better the a pokemon game on ds the battles more fun and challnging hope.you will make lots of games in time u and dan have a gift keep going ive been with since lvl 1 and im here tell the bitter end (hopefuly never comes) remember to have fun

technically there are two gaps in route 29... allowing to bypass the checkpoint house before route 46 entrance. although you cannot enter route 46 because it isn't created yet (and for sam i've mailed screen shots indicating the two gaps with the main character). Good luck at debug, yours MartII.

well the town save points isnt possible at the moment since theres only 1town atm so it isnt efficient... and i think the story will be more towards like the actual game wise (gb/gbc/gba/ds) so there isnt any so called "levels"

sam should i have to cyndaquils when i go to route 29??? and we should be able to choose traveling buddies like joey and maruto could be rivals and they could be rivals and we could choose between them then the other one will travel with our rival. or we should get a traveling buddy of the opposite gender

I found the gap! It is around the path to Cherrygrove City where the guard says that I can't pass, then a bit to the right the trees sort of form a dip down (like a bowl shape) and the gap is where the dip starts or somewhere close, I MADE IT IN!

If you use time or steps to change day and night, make sure to use a large number, but not to large. I was thinking maybe 5,000 steps for day to turn to night or maybe half an hour.

You don't want the transitions be too constant or else it will make the game a bit to fast (for lack of a better word). I don't want to walk across the map to a new town only to find out I have to leave because it takes a 100 steps on route 29 or something. Same with chasing pokemon to capture, switching too often won't work well for us pokemon trainers.

Yes. I think some people (me included) would enjoy having it a little easier to raise a pokemon to max level once we have a pokemon at max level, but that's just about convenience, and I think the way the game is now is absolutely fine.

"If you wish to contact Sam or Dan, the forum is probably not the best place to do so, leave a comment on one of my blogs or email me (Sam) directly." Im sorry but this kind of confused me xD; Is samdangames.blogspot.com not the forum or is it a "Blog" xD Cause you seem to respond often here

Sam please I really need your help right now, I accidentally paid for 75 SnD coins worth of 20 dollars and I was wandering if I could get a refund anytime this week. Please try to get a refund its serious. Thanks a lot Sam I'd appreciate it if you could try.

I thought the first PTD was really good and innovative. However having played this one, I am less sure about this one. It looks better and is clearly a more complicated game, so well done to you for creating such a game. However my concern is that you have gone too close to the Nintendo Pokemon games.

The first game was a Tower Defense Game with Pokemon, this is a Pokemon game with Tower Defense (sort of). The way it looks and plays (and also the features you plan to implement) are directly ripped from the Pokemon games. With the first game I was happy to play and I came back regularly for updates as it offered something different. With this game it doesn't offer enough new features to justify playing it over say Pokemon Gold.

Its early days so I will be intrigued to see how it evolves (Pokemon pun intended!)

Hi Sam I would like to know if you can do in the pokemon center a button to trade or gift snd coins because I had more than one account in ptd1 and I've won 1 snd coin with the daily gift in two different accounts, I had already 5 snd coins before on one of them so now I have 6 and 1. If we can trade or gift snd coins we can sum our snd in different accounts so I would have 7 snd on one account and when I'll win or buy other 3 snd I should be able to adopt a shiny starter instead of win/ buy other 4 snd understood? Thanks for the attention and good work!

Is it possible to trade a PTD1 pokemon for a PTD2 pokemon directly? For example to trade a snorlax with a sentret. If not people will rely on separate trades (that is trade a shiny snorlax for a useless pokemon in PTD1 first, then trade a useless pokemon for a shiny sentret in PTD2) This can easily scam people. So I think making it possible to trade a PTD1 pokemon for a PTD2 pokemon directly is essential to avoid scamming.

I think this idea is fascinating and a cool concept, but practically it really won't work. I mean, if 3 embers is a flamethrower, then why not just do 3 embers? 3 embers is 3*40 = 120 dealt out over time, while one flamethrower is 95 dealt out over the same time. So you are in essence actually weakening the moves, and I think most people would choose the damage of the 3 embers over flamethrower.

Sam has already said that we will be able to move pokemon from our PTD1 accounts to our PTD2 accounts. It's not really possible to physically trade between PTD2 and PTD1 though, because the pokemon are different, and unless Sam dramatically updates PDT1, it doesn't have the capability now to hold a sentret. Note that even pokemon transfer will probably not be allowed immediately, but it's up to Sam.

I think the main problem you're seeing is that the trainer vs trainer battles can hardly be called Tower Defense. And I agree, but those are not the only battles we're going to get. The game is still largely under construction, and I'm sure that as we progress there will be more actual TD style challenges and battles. I also think, though, that the trainer vs trainer is a good way to combine TD with the original pokemon, so long as it doesn't take over completely.

Ah, sorry, I was confused by you calling them move combos (I was picturing multiple pokemon doing the same move and combining the effects). So the basic idea is that moves gain more power as you train them. I think that is interesting, and would be cool, but I think the games account for this in a general way. What I mean is that instead of training individual moves, you really train the stats of the pokemon, so that while the base power of ember might not be raised, it would do more damage as your special attack increases. And this makes it so that when your pokemon learns flamethrower, it is also more powerful. Moreover, I think that most moves are actually different from others. Even ember and flamethrower--ember is basically a few fireballs, or as it is depicted in the anime, a rain of tiny little embers from a fire. This is physically very different from a prolonged stream of pure flame, that is, flamethrower. Likewise, thunderbolt originates with the pokemon, but thunder is most often depicted to originate from the air or clouds. And I would hate to be forced to take a superpowered gust and turn it into a move with only 70 percent accuracy.

So although it would be cool, and perhaps a good idea for CUTD, I don't think it really fits the pokemon genre. Moves are meant to actually be different, even if they are of the same type. And the variations in effects, accuracy, and power all reflect this.

Well i just gave a brief idea. While using a powerful move u lose accuracy, same can be done with the powered up moves, as for ur ember thing, its how u interpret, ember is small fire balls(pure flame balls) so make them better by making big fire balls or increase the number of pure flame balls to get a prolonged stream of pure flame i.e. flamethrower. Since big fire balls didn't exist so i took the other option 2 save time of introducing new move forms. My idea was to make a new way of learning move n get 2 do something before the next update. One can power up moves in infinite ways but powering them up 2 create existing moves will save loads of time.

I've got another set for emberEmber(1)[40]Flame Burst(1)[70] Flame Burst(2,3)[85,100] Fireblast(1-5)[120-x]small balls of fire that form a bigger ball of fire that bursts which forms an even bigger ball of fire that burst into a 5 pointed star shape. This will be a more smoother transformation.

If you are refering to ptd, than you go to the mystery gift tab at the top of this page and it will be writen their, you type it in the code in the mystery gift section on the main screen (where you can also choose story mode, pokemart, pokedex, etc.). You will naturaly have to find the answer to the codes for every charecter individually in a big online scavenger hunt type thing (on the playtowerdefencegames website).

hey sam like what ur doing here, but is it possible to give snd coins for the mystery gift? and i would like if u start adding 2 levels pur week bcuz ptd 2 is awesome and through the whole week i only get i ptd 2 level. I aprieciate what ur doing here but ill like 2 levels per week insted of 1 thanks in advance

I know what you mean, it would be more fun. But we have to remember that Sam has a life of his own to live and we can't push him past his limit. The good thing about going one level at a time is that he can fix all the bugs before they become too numerous and/or a big problem. We will have to just be patient for a higher quality gaming experience.

I personally think that it will be a bit interesting to have the pokemon different sizes. Just like in ptd 1, all the pokemon (no matter the size they appear as) only take up one space. The cool part that I think is that it will make catching some pokemon harder than others. Also, I remember in pokemon yellow (my older cousin let me borrow it when I was younger) that their was a snorlax blocking a route by sleeping at the entrence. Sam can make a nice little story for the hero (you, the gamer,) to unblock the route by searching for a berry or feather of some sort (a held item) so that when you go to snorlax he wakes up and moves out of the way.

That was an example of how Sam can make pokemon sizes more enjoyable for the gameplay in ptd2. (Snorlax might have some trouble getting into some areas)

Sam, this is a little bug report. Logged into the game earlier this evening, and one of my Pidgey (a level 10 female, if that matters) had the moveset of my Rattata (Quick Attack, Tail Whip, Bite, Focus Energy). The Rattata's moveset was unchanged, that is, it hadn't been swapped with the Pidgey's. When I had saved this morning, the moveset was Tackle, Sand Attack, Gust (the same as my male Pidgey, which was unaffected by the glitch). I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I thought I should let you know. Thanks for all you do with PTD!

Okay, so when I found a hole in the trees last week and heard that you were doing something with it I waited, and today when you let it out I went and checked my hole, and nothing happened... so I did like I typically do and youtubed it, and I found the hole that many other people have found and found your cool trick, and thanks, but fyi there is another hole, and here is how to get to it: When entering route 29 walk straight left to the patch of 8 trees in two columns of four, move up slightly and left some more, boom you are in my hole, thought you should know about this, might be cool to have "holes" in the various routes and caves or towns to have random things like that, make it more fun to search for. Thanks for the fun! Love your games!!!

I don't know if my last post worked, since I don't see it at all, but another hole is near the new police officer, to the left past the first two trees, then go up and to the right and you will be in a hole between 4 trees.

Recently, I noticed that you can't play ptd1 and ptd2 at the same time with the same account without having saving problems. This started in the newest update. Wondering if this is on purpose, or accidental?

Sam there is only a shadow sentret Male and female in the south. And a male and female normal rattata in the north near route 46's entrance. What are the 2 new pokemon. Please tell us sometime. P.S. Also in the south when a shadow sentret approaches it says a shiny pokemon approaches. Thanks Sam.

Uhh... i just deleted my profile and created a new one since that one might have been bugged (pokes not learning anything)... now when i try to save it gives me an error so i cant create any profiles... :/ it says "error: you can't save in this file because you have saved or logged in either another game or the pokemon center. Please log in again to solve this problem." so i quit the game reloged but still the same thing... please help...

hi Sam, I liked what u did about the gaps:3there are just 2 things I'm quite unsure u actually meant them to be like that: 1. it says "a shiny pokemon........." when it actually appears to be a shadow 2. if it actually should be a shadow pokemon it should have the move "shadow rash" if i'm not mistaken. anyways great work, I really like your ideas:)